Defiant Fireflies

Hello everyone and welcome back! During the trimester, I have been sitting in on the Game Studio 1 class to increase my knowledge of how games actually work and to see first hand how to design them. In the time I’ve spent with the games class I have made some new friends, worked on a number of games and have been introduced to the do’s and don’ts of game development, all of which have been extremely beneficial to my journey as a game-composer, so a big thanks to Tony Parmenter and Steve Halliwell for letting me learn!

The final project for Game Studio 1’s class was Alight, a tale about fireflies and today was a special day because we got to show it off to some real industry pros! Tony Parmenter pulled a few strings and we were lucky enough to be invited to Defiant, a games production company in the heart of Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, to showcase the latest games the class had worked on and get some feedback from the development studio’s founder, Morgan Jaffit. It was a nervous moment when Morgan started controlling the fireflies, the whole crew of Alight was just standing there watching him play the game, hoping that he liked it and more importantly hoping he didn’t break it! Stewart Coates gave the lead artist Erika Verkaaik and myself honourable mentions in the introduction and said that the combination of Erika’s concept art and my concept music/dialogue had given them the vision they needed and inspired the whole game! Go the art department!

Behind The Door, Dreams Are Made

Once Morgan had completed the game he offered his thoughts and said that out of the three games on display from the class, Alight was the most polished and that we had nailed the aesthetic. He mentioned that we should keep the difficulty the same and said that he really liked the feeling of exploration you get when playing the game. We almost couldn’t contain ourselves when he made a comment on the nature of the game, being that to move forward, sacrifices must be made for the greater good, a sentiment we really tried to hit home and well, it worked! Another proud moment was when the crew from Defiant said they loved the narration, an element of the game that took a lot of polishing because we knew that the content and the delivery of the narrator had to be strong for the game to have the desired effect.

Finding A Place Of Warmth

Having a goal to work towards has definitely made Alight what it is today and the most encouraging part of our tour was being told our game was just about good enough to ship to the indie market as is (not bad for a bunch of friends with a 4 week timeframe!). It was an awesome day and a big thank you to Morgan Jaffit and Defiant for letting us into their workplace to see the reality of game development! May the fourth be with you.